A Body of Knowledge and Pedagogy for Global Engineering

Abstract

Global engineers must be taught to consider the historical and present causes of persistent poverty and systematic barriers to prosperity. Such training will better inform the choices engineers make and help move the engineering sector away from a product and community-level focus towards working to address the root causes of poverty. A framing for Global Engineering has recently been proposed by the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, building on over 15 years of curricular efforts. Global Engineering, as taught by the Mortenson Center, positions the field as a complement to Global Health and Development Economics while further embracing a historically contextualized and anti-colonial training.

Passing Along Experiential and Learned Understandings of Inequality: Marginalized Communities are Shapers of Humanitarian Engineers

“…Grassroots can be defined as projects that use the people in a given district, region, or community as the basis for infrastructure development. Community-driven initiatives have been proven to be valuable in modern-day engineering initiatives such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and decolonizing development initiatives [1]. While grassroots organizations are commonly praised in HE spaces, we must also be sure the individuals dedicated to grassroots efforts are also being supported.…”

“…Notably, undergraduate courses with humanitarian design projects have stronger retention rates of these underrepresented groups [14], and universities are creating HE programs and design projects in part to increase the recruitment and retention of these students [15], [16]. There are signs that these spaces are becoming accessible and valuable to women; for instance, HE clubs such as EWB have a substantially higher percentage of women (40%) than typical engineering clubs, and many HE cohorts have strong percentages of women [1], [16], [17]. Further, white women have been identified as flourishing in humanitarian spaces [18].…”

“…While there has been increased interest in and reflection of antiracism and social justice activism in Humanitarian Engineering, many diversity, inclusion, and equity endeavors in engineering education remain denounced as shallow and ineffective [23]. Further, HE graduate programs have reported struggling to increase the presence of students from low-income countries [1]. Given that engineering spaces can continue to be hostile environments, where students of color represent 21% and 14% of engineering and science masters and doctorates, respectively [24], we must utilize educational frameworks centered on race and racism to understand the current accessibility and value of HE to the students who continue to be underrepresented.…”

“…Imperative to the success of these programs is sweeping recruitment and resiliency of students across races and nationalities and consequently across the intersections of lived infrastructure instability. Students from marginalized communities carry social, navigational, technical, linguistic, and cultural capacities that enrich HE learning environments for students of all backgrounds, and their minimal presence has been identified as a learning disadvantage by past HE cohorts [1]. Further, HE activists and stakeholders are demanding the humanitarian field decolonize and implement anti-racist structures [2].…”